Apple Inc (AAPL)
🔔 Watch stock
symbol.quality_heading
Business model, numbers and balance sheet hold up to our review. Whether the current price supports an entry is a separate question — it hangs on the price, not on the company.
Anyone holding the stock holds an operationally outstanding company with a fortress balance sheet and a product cycle in full swing — the filings offer no reason to sell. A new entry at 34 times record earnings, by contrast, is a deliberate triple bet: on the durability of the iPhone cycle, on lenient rulings on the Google contract and the App Store commission, and on the memory-cost wave not catching the margin. Whoever understands all three bets and wants to carry them buys quality at a quality price; whoever has no answer to one of them waits — for instance for the appeals ruling on the Google contract or the first quarters under the full memory-cost load. The decision is yours.
symbol.quality_note
Everyone knows Apple — and that is exactly the problem: holding the product in your hand every day makes you believe you know the stock too. We read the mandatory filings instead: $416.2 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2025, a record iPhone cycle after four years of stagnation, a services segment with a 75 percent margin — but also a Google search contract whose future an appeals court is deciding, an App Store commission under fire from Epic to Brussels, a memory-chip cost surge Apple itself calls "intensifying," and a price-to-earnings ratio of about 34. Our value scanner based on Joel Greenblatt's Magic Formula lights up anyway. Not investment advice — just the instruction manual that never ships with the best-known product in the world.
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Stock Watch
This analysis is as of July 15, 2026. Stock Watch will tell you what's changed at AAPL since then.
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Appears in These Scanners
This stock currently matches 6 of our scanner strategies — each hit links to the scanner.
Only genuine hits from verified scanners count; pure ranking metrics (P/E, P/S, and similar, which just sort the whole universe) don't count as a hit. View all scanners
Trading Day
Key levels of the most recently completed trading day — not a live quote.
52-Week Range
Current price 308.90 $ — 77% of the range above the low.
Lowest and highest closing price over the last 52 weeks. The marker shows where the current price sits within that range: close to the high speaks for strength, close to the low for weakness.
Basics
Performance
Technical Indicators
Calculated from the price history · as of 08/03/2026
Valuation
Profitability
Balance Sheet & Safety
Growth
Dividend
Quality & Screener
AI Rating
Uses AIGeprüft am 14.07.2026 gegen den Geschäftsbericht (10-K) für das Geschäftsjahr 2025 (eingereicht 31.10.2025), den 10-K für das Geschäftsjahr 2024 (01.11.2024) und die vier jüngsten Quartalsberichte (10-Q, zuletzt zum 28.03.2026, eingereicht 01.05.2026). Befund: Apple integriert KI nachweislich in Produkte, Dienste und Abläufe — der Quartalsbericht zum 28.03.2026 enthält erstmals einen eigenständigen KI-Risikofaktor, der mit der Feststellung beginnt, KI-Technologien würden „zunehmend in die Produkte und Dienste des Unternehmens sowie in sein Geschäft und seine Abläufe integriert“; im selben Quartal stiegen die Forschungsausgaben um 34 Prozent, laut Bericht vor allem wegen höherer Infrastruktur-Kosten. Der 10-K für 2024 führte „Apple Intelligence“ als Produktneuheit ein — ein „persönliches Intelligenzsystem, das generative Modelle nutzt“ —, also als unentgeltlichen Produktbestandteil des Betriebssystems. Kein „verkauft“: In keinem der sechs ausgewerteten Filings wird KI als eigene Umsatzquelle ausgewiesen — weder in der Geschäftsbeschreibung (Item 1: Erlösquellen sind Geräte, App Store, Werbung/Lizenzen, iCloud, AppleCare, Zahlungsdienste) noch in der Ertragslage (MD&A); der 10-K für 2025 erwähnt Apple Intelligence nicht einmal namentlich. Kein „bedroht“: Die KI-Passagen der Risikokapitel betreffen Risiken der EIGENEN KI-Anstrengungen (Wettbewerb und Strategie, Wiedererwirtschaftung der Kosten, Produkthaftung, IP, Datenschutz, Regulierung) sowie generische, KI-verschärfte Cyberrisiken — kein Filing benennt KI als konkrete Bedrohung des eigenen Geschäftsmodells. Nach der Vorrang-Regel bleibt: „Nutzt KI“ — KI als Produktbestandteil und operatives Werkzeug, finanziert aus der Marge, ohne ausgewiesene KI-Erlöse.
View the full file — quotes, sources, reviewed filings
„Artificial intelligence technologies are increasingly integrated into the Company’s products and services and its business and operations. These technologies present emerging legal, regulatory, ethical and operational risks that could materially adversely affect the Company’s business, results of operations and financial condition."
Technologien der Künstlichen Intelligenz werden zunehmend in die Produkte und Dienste des Unternehmens sowie in sein Geschäft und seine Abläufe integriert. Diese Technologien bringen neu entstehende rechtliche, regulatorische, ethische und operative Risiken mit sich, die das Geschäft, die Ertragslage und die Finanzlage des Unternehmens wesentlich beeinträchtigen könnten.
„For example, the Company’s artificial intelligence efforts may give rise to risks related to: competition and strategy; recouping costs and returns on investments; product liability; intellectual property infringement; data privacy; cybersecurity; sanctions and export controls; exposing users to harmful, inaccurate or other negative content or experiences; bias and discrimination; and online safety and protection of minors; among other issues."
Die KI-Anstrengungen des Unternehmens können beispielsweise Risiken mit sich bringen in Bezug auf: Wettbewerb und Strategie; die Wiedererwirtschaftung von Kosten und die Rendite der Investitionen; Produkthaftung; Verletzung geistigen Eigentums; Datenschutz; Cybersicherheit; Sanktionen und Exportkontrollen; die Konfrontation von Nutzern mit schädlichen, unzutreffenden oder anderweitig negativen Inhalten und Erfahrungen; Voreingenommenheit und Diskriminierung; sowie Online-Sicherheit und Jugendschutz — neben weiteren Themen.
„Apple Intelligence™, a personal intelligence system that uses generative models."
Apple Intelligence™ — ein persönliches Intelligenzsystem, das generative Modelle nutzt. (Aufgeführt in der Liste der im dritten Quartal des Geschäftsjahres 2024 angekündigten Produkte, Item 1 „Business“.)
Filings Reviewed: 10-Q 2026-05-01 · 10-Q 2026-01-30 · 10-Q 2025-08-01 · 10-Q 2025-05-02 · 10-K 2025-10-31 · 10-K 2024-11-01
Rated on July 14, 2026 · How the Rating Is Built
What the Earnings Calls Reveal
Red flags Delivers, pledge brokenAcross ten calls from 2024-Q2 to 2026-Q3, Apple met or beat its revenue guidance in every single following quarter, in some cases by a wide margin. On the numbers side the communication is precise, verifiable and consistent across quarters. One dated pledge was nonetheless broken: the personal Siri, announced in January 2025 for the coming months, only reaches customers in autumn 2026. The long-standing net cash neutral target was abandoned in April 2026 - but it never carried a date, and its removal was stated openly on the call and explained. On the payments from its search engine partner Apple withholds the magnitude, while pointing each time to the pending court proceedings.
10 calls reviewed, 2024-Q2 through 2026-Q3 · As of August 2, 2026
Personal Siri: two years between pledge and delivery
In the 2024-Q3 call Tim Cook described the staggered launch of Apple Intelligence exactly as it had been announced in June. In the 2024-Q4 call he said verbatim that the company was exactly on what it had said at the developer conference and was executing well. In the 2025-Q1 call Cook said, verbatim, that the personal Siri was coming over the next several months. In the 2025-Q2 call the reversal came: more time was needed. No warning had been given in any earlier call. Asked directly for the cause (organisation, legacy software stack or R&D budget), Cook listed the features already shipped and said it was simply taking a bit longer and there was no other reason; the CFO added that R&D was not being underfunded. From 2025-Q3 the pledge moved to next year, in 2026-Q1 it emerged that the new Siri rests on a collaboration with Google, and only in the 2026-Q3 call did it reach a public beta with shipping in autumn 2026 - still unavailable in the EU and in China.
Net cash neutral: reaffirmed, then openly abandoned
In the 2024-Q2 call the net cash neutral target was explicitly confirmed, with net cash at 58bn USD. Apple never named a date: asked in that very call, CFO Luca Maestri replied that the company was working hard to get there, that it would still take a while, and that once there it would reassess the optimal capital structure. In the 2024-Q4 call an analyst asked why net cash had been stuck at around 50bn USD for two years - the answer addressed operating expenses and margin, not a timeline. In the 2025-Q2 call the target was reaffirmed alongside the buyback increase, net cash 35bn USD. After that the trend reversed: 31bn USD in 2025-Q3, 34bn USD in 2025-Q4, 54bn USD in 2026-Q1. In the 2026-Q2 call, at 62bn USD, the target was dropped - not quietly, but in the CFO's prepared remarks and explained at length when questioned: cash and debt would in future be evaluated independently because that allows economically better decisions. In the same breath the board authorised a further 100bn USD for buybacks and raised the dividend by 4 percent. Buyback volume fell in the same quarter from 25bn to 11bn USD; the call gave a reason for that too, the CEO transition announced shortly before.
Search partner payments: never quantified
In four calls - 2024-Q4, 2025-Q2, 2025-Q3 and 2025-Q4 - analysts asked about the size, the risk or the fallback options around the payments from the search engine agreement. A figure never came. The reason given was the same every time and is defensible: the pending antitrust case against the partner, on whose outcome management would not speculate. In the 2025-Q2 call Tim Cook did at least name the risk explicitly as real and the outcome as unclear. Cook's well-known line from the 2025-Q4 call, that he was dodging the question intentionally, did not refer to the search payments but to the follow-up asking whether, inside the advertising category, first-party and third-party business had each set records individually; he supplied the reason in the same sentence, that Apple does not split at that level, and had just disclosed that the advertising category as a whole set a record. That reporting granularity applies consistently at Apple, no sub-line of Services or Wearables is broken out separately. A plus for investors: in the 2025-Q3 call Apple disclosed explicitly that the revenue guidance assumes the continuation of exactly this agreement.
Vision Pro: from flagship to footnote
In the 2024-Q2 to 2024-Q4 calls Vision Pro was a focus of the prepared remarks with six to seven mentions each, dedicated paragraphs and corporate customers as evidence; in the 2024-Q2 call it was said that more than half of the 100 largest US corporations had already bought units. After that its presence declined, though not evenly: three mentions in 2025-Q1, six again in 2025-Q2, five in 2025-Q3, two in 2025-Q4. In the 2025-Q3 call an analyst had to point out explicitly that Vision Pro had received too little airtime in the prepared section. In the 2026-Q1 and 2026-Q2 calls the product did not appear once, and in the 2026-Q3 call only in a footnote on accessibility. A separate revenue or unit figure was never given - but that matches the company's reporting practice: Apple has published unit figures for no product at all since 2018, and revenue is reported only at segment level, which is why Watch and AirPods get no separate figure either.
Counterweight: the guidance itself was delivered throughout
On the numbers the record is clean. In all nine verifiable handovers from 2024-Q2 to 2026-Q3 the revenue guidance was met or beaten. The largest upside deviation came in the 2025-Q2 call, where low to mid single digit growth was guided for the June quarter and ten percent was delivered in 2025-Q3. The pledges given in the 2025-Q4 call for the December quarter - best quarter ever, best iPhone quarter ever, return to growth in China - were all exceeded in 2026-Q1 with 143.8bn USD, iPhone up 23 percent and Greater China up 38 percent. The tariff cost estimates were also precise (0.9bn guided, 0.8bn paid; 1.1bn guided and hit exactly). Two exceptions: operating expenses came in above the stated range in both 2025-Q4 and 2026-Q2, and in 2026-Q2 the CFO acknowledged this himself.
Management promises
-
2024-Q3 kept
Apple Intelligence starts in autumn 2024 in US English, with further features and languages following over the next year.
Delivered on the dot: first features at the end of October 2024, international English and the chatbot integration in December 2024, eight further languages in April 2025 - each exactly on the dates named in the 2024-Q4 and 2025-Q1 calls.
-
2025-Q1 broken
The personal Siri is coming over the next several months.
Broken. Four months later, in the 2025-Q2 call, it was said without substantive explanation that more time was needed; from 2025-Q3 it was pushed to the following year. The new Siri only reached users as a public beta in July 2026, shipping in autumn 2026 - roughly eighteen months after the pledge and without the EU and China.
-
2025-Q3 kept
Tariff costs for the September 2025 quarter will amount to about 1.1bn USD.
Confirmed exactly in the 2025-Q4 call: 1.1bn USD, explicitly in line with the company's own estimate. The prior-quarter estimate of 0.9bn USD was likewise not exceeded, with 0.8bn USD actually paid.
-
2025-Q4 kept
The December quarter will be the best quarter in company history and the best iPhone quarter ever; Greater China will return to growth.
Clearly exceeded. The 2026-Q1 call reported 143.8bn USD in revenue (up 16 percent versus the 10 to 12 percent guided), iPhone up 23 percent and Greater China up 38 percent. Gross margin also came in above the upper bound of the guidance.
-
2026-Q3 open
Siri AI will ship to all users in autumn 2026; no date exists yet for the EU and China.
Still open. The public beta is running and the autumn date stands. For the EU, the 2026-Q3 call says talks with the commission are ongoing; in China only the original AI features were cleared in July 2026, with approval for Siri AI still pending. Given the history, this pledge belongs under observation.
Based on public earnings call transcripts. Reviewed: 10 transcripts 2024-Q2 through 2026-Q3.
Highlighted are things our editorial team noticed: green = stands out as strong, red = deserves a closer look. No single metric is a verdict on its own — always read it in context.
Analysts & Price Target
The price target sits 4.7% above the current price.
- Consensus
- Sell
- Analyst Ratings
- 48
Combined picture of the price targets and recommendations of every analyst covering the stock. Price targets are expectations for the next 12 months, not promises — and they often follow the price rather than predict it.
Estimates by Fiscal Year
| Fiscal Year | EPS Estimate ($) | EPS Range ($) | Revenue Estimate ($M) | Expected Growth | Analysts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09/30/2026 | 8.81 | 8.57 – 8.92 | 477,391 | 18.0% | 37 |
| 09/30/2027 | 9.59 | 8.24 – 10.96 | 523,866 | 8.0% | 41 |
Average of the analyst estimates for the coming fiscal years. The range shows how far the most optimistic and the most cautious estimate sit apart — the wider it is, the less certain the expectation.
Revenue & Profit
Cash Flow
Balance Sheet
Margins
Per Share
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· Total · per year
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The figures could not be loaded right now.
Source: fundamental data
Quarterly Figures
| Quarter | EPS (Earnings Per Share) | EPS YoY (%) | Sales ($M) | Sales YoY (%) | Net Margin (%) | OCF ($M) | FCF ($M) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024: Q4 | 2.40 | 10.10 | 124,300 | 4.00 | 29.20 | 29,935 | 26,995 |
| 2025: Q1 | 1.65 | 7.70 | 95,359 | 5.10 | 26.00 | 23,952 | 20,881 |
| 2025: Q2 | 1.57 | 12.20 | 94,036 | 9.60 | 24.90 | 27,867 | 24,405 |
| 2025: Q3 | 1.83 | 91.40 | 102,466 | 7.90 | 26.80 | 29,728 | 26,486 |
| 2025: Q4 | 2.84 | 18.50 | 143,756 | 15.70 | 29.30 | 53,925 | 51,552 |
| 2026: Q1 | 2.00 | 21.70 | 111,184 | 16.60 | 26.60 | 28,702 | 26,731 |
| 2026: Q2 | 2.02 | 28.70 | 109,417 | 16.40 | 27.20 | 34,369 | 31,914 |
- EPS (Earnings Per Share):
- Quarterly profit divided by the total share count — how much of the profit works out to a single share.
- YoY (Year over Year):
- Change versus the same quarter a year ago — this is how you compare without seasonal distortion (e.g. the holiday shopping season).
- Sales:
- All revenue for the quarter, before any costs are deducted — the top line of the income statement.
- Net Margin:
- What percentage of sales is left over as profit in the end. Negative means the company is posting a loss.
- OCF (Operating Cash Flow):
- The cash that actually flows into the till from the core business during the quarter — harder to dress up than book profit.
- FCF (Free Cash Flow):
- Operating cash flow minus capital expenditures — the money that's genuinely free to use, say for paying down debt, buybacks, or dividends.
Annual Figures
| Fiscal Year | Revenue ($M) | EBIT ($M) | Net Income ($M) | EPS ($) | Operating Cash Flow ($M) | Equity ($M) | Total Assets ($M) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 215,639 | 60,024 | 45,687 | 2.08 | 65,824 | 128,249 | 321,686 |
| 2017 | 229,234 | 61,344 | 48,351 | 2.30 | 63,598 | 134,047 | 375,319 |
| 2018 | 265,595 | 70,898 | 59,531 | 2.98 | 77,434 | 107,147 | 365,725 |
| 2019 | 260,174 | 63,930 | 55,256 | 2.97 | 69,391 | 90,488 | 338,516 |
| 2020 | 274,515 | 66,288 | 57,411 | 3.28 | 80,674 | 65,339 | 323,888 |
| 2021 | 365,817 | 108,949 | 94,680 | 5.61 | 104,038 | 63,090 | 351,002 |
| 2022 | 394,328 | 119,437 | 99,803 | 6.11 | 122,151 | 50,672 | 352,755 |
| 2023 | 383,285 | 114,301 | 96,995 | 6.13 | 110,543 | 62,146 | 352,583 |
| 2024 | 391,035 | 123,216 | 93,736 | 6.08 | 118,254 | 56,950 | 364,980 |
| 2025 | 416,161 | 133,050 | 112,010 | 7.47 | 111,482 | 73,733 | 359,241 |
Fiscal years from the audited annual reports, oldest first. EBIT is the operating profit before interest and taxes; total assets are everything the company owns.
Assessment: Opportunities & Risks
The most valuable consumer ecosystem in the world: an iPhone 17 cycle with +23 percent half-year growth after four years of stagnation, a comeback in Greater China (+33 percent), plus the services tollbooth with $109.2 billion in annual revenue and a 75.4 percent gross margin (10-K FY 2025; 10-Q as of March 28, 2026).
A record half-year with $254.9 billion in revenue and $71.7 billion in net income, $82.6 billion in operating cash flow, roughly $60 billion in net cash, Piotroski 8 of 9 and Altman-Z 6.6 — plus two fresh $100 billion buyback programs (10-Q as of March 28, 2026; scanner data as of July 8, 2026).
Three fronts at the most profitable segment: a possible ban on commercial Google terms in the antitrust appeal, the Epic case with a temporary commission ban plus a referral to review criminal steps, a €500 million DMA fine plus a second EU proceeding threatening up to 10 percent of worldwide revenue, and on top the DOJ monopolization suit (10-K FY 2025; 10-Q as of March 28, 2026).
A good half of revenue from a single product category, final assembly almost entirely at contract manufacturers in Asia, a tariff regime in permanent flux; memory costs (DRAM/NAND) are rising with an "intensifying" tendency per Apple's own filing, and the new AI risk factor names competition and cost risks of the catch-up race — with no disclosed AI revenue source (10-K FY 2025; 10-Q as of March 28, 2026).
A P/E of about 34, price to free cash flow of about 31, a 0.4 percent dividend yield (data as of July 8, 2026) — what is being paid for is the best half-year in company history as the new normal; the buyback machine amplifies earnings per share but does not replace growth, as fiscal years 2022 through 2024 show.
Apple is the rare case of a value scanner hit at the all-time high of its own performance: a record half-year, an iPhone supercycle, net cash, Piotroski 8 of 9 — quality exactly as the Magic Formula loves it. Set against this are three open questions no scanner can price: whether the courts in Washington, California and Brussels leave the tollbooth intact whose licensing and commission revenue carries the highest-margin part of the profit; whether the iPhone 17 surge is a new plateau or just a wave; and whether Apple can fund the AI catch-up race without rising memory and infrastructure costs clawing back the record margin. A P/E of about 34 leaves no room for disappointment on any of the three fronts. Not investment advice.
- Apple has an offset fiscal year (ending: last Saturday of September). "FY 2025" denotes the twelve months through September 27, 2025, the "first half of FY 2026" the six months through March 28, 2026.
- Net income for FY 2024 ($93.7 billion) was depressed by the one-time tax expense of $10.2 billion from the confirmed Ireland back-tax payment (European Court of Justice ruling, September 2024); the 2025 profit jump is partly a base effect.
- Price and valuation figures are dated to July 8, 2026 (about $275 per share, roughly $4,041 billion in market value); analyses are evergreen, daily prices are not a buy argument.
- The scanner membership was checked twice: data as of July 8, 2026 (Greenblatt, Terry Smith, Zweig, Altman-Z Balance Sheet Fortress) and a live check on July 14, 2026 (Greenblatt and Terry Smith confirmed; the other two had since dropped out).
About the Company
Apple Inc. entwickelt, fertigt und vermarktet weltweit Smartphones, PCs, Tablets, Wearables und Zubehör.
| Employees | 166,000 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Cupertino, CA |
| Address | One Apple Park Way, 95014 Cupertino, United States |
| Phone | (408) 996-1010 |
| Website | apple.com |
| IPO Date | 12. Dec 1980 |
| ISIN | US0378331005 |
| Stock Split | 4:1 on 08/31/2020 |
Management
| Name | Title | Birth Year |
|---|---|---|
| Timothy D. Cook | CEO & Director | 1961 |
| Kevan Parekh | Senior VP & CFO | 1972 |
| Sabih Khan | Senior VP & Chief Operating Officer | 1967 |
| Deirdre O'Brien | Senior Vice President of Retail & People | 1967 |
| Katherine L. Adams | Senior VP of Government Affairs & Secretary | 1964 |
| Ben Borders | Principal Accounting Officer | 1981 |
| Suhasini Chandramouli | Director of Investor Relations | – |
| Jennifer G. Newstead J.D. | Senior VP & General Counsel | 1970 |
| Kristin Huguet Quayle | Vice President of Worldwide Communications | – |
| Greg Joswiak | Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing | – |
Executives per the latest required filings; titles kept in their original language. Source: fundamental data.
Chart
Interactive price chart (TradingView).
Data as of: July 31, 2026 · Source: fundamental data & SEC filings (annual and quarterly reports, 10-K/10-Q)
Note: pure fact-based analysis, not investment advice and not a solicitation to buy or sell. All figures without guarantee.